Portion control

One of my favorite diners offers a breakfast special that is served on two full-sized plates.

It’s awesome, but, should you finish it, you won’t need to eat for the rest of the day. Possibly the rest of the weekend. And you’re gonna need a nap.

It’s way more food than anyone needs for breakfast.

Much is made about out-of-control portion sizes and what they’re doing to our health. It’s getting to the point that a proper portion of food looks ridiculously small. We’ve trained ourselves to equate “satisfied” with “stuffed.”

What’s a reasonable to-do list? No one takes a “lunch hour,” do they? Does anyone ever feel like they’ve accomplished enough at the end of the day?

After more than 20 years in a professional role, I don’t know what “busy” is anymore. That’s not to say that I’m lounging around, but I’ve been packing so many responsibilities, obligations and tasks into each day for so long that I’m starting to think that it’s normal to have a to-do list that spans 3 single-spaced pages.

What’s worse is that I combat the feeling of being overwhelmed by reminding myself of all the people who work so much harder than me. Heck, people have my kind of job and are single parents to a passel of kids. My mind boggles at that super-sized portion of busy with a side order of crazy.

All this achievement has left me with a skewed sense of satisfaction almost as out of control as restaurant serving sizes.

A solid 8 hours of work? That’s a nice start.

No working on the weekend? What, are we on vacation?

Turning off the email? Great, now you can clean your house, scour the internet for a gift for your sister’s birthday next week, pay the bills, hit the grocery store and, if there’s time before you pass out, have a meaningful conversation and/or sex with your significant other.

I don’t have one of those handy charts to show me what a typical day used to look like. I know that many things we do now are physically easier than they used to be. (Most of us aren’t scrubbing our laundry on a washboard anymore.) But just because we’ve managed to cram more into 24 hours than ever before doesn’t make it any more healthy than eating a two-plate breakfast.